The once mighty Republic has become a ghost town

In addition to the main Venetian Channel, the Grand Canal, in the city you can see countless pretty narrow small canals

They are so heavily woven into the body of the city that on them, as on pedestrian streets, they hang exactly the same signs with the names. In addition to the already mentioned Grand Canal, in Venice there is only one channel that has been awarded the highest honor - to serve as a "route" for vaporetto - urban public transport. The first girl gondolier appeared in Venice only 900 years after the appearance of the profession itself - in 2010. Seven years later, they became more, although still most of the gondoliers are men. In total, having the right to operate a gondola in Venice is about 400.

Many channels are medium in size, and some are so narrow that even the ubiquitous gondola will crawl through here. Embankments are not everywhere, and many houses stand right in the water. Two thirds of the Venetians do not live on the islands, but on the mainland. Venice causes emotions. It does not leave the tourist indifferent. If the Grand Canal, the largest in Venice, dividing it into two parts, is still an elegant avenue and only one side of this impossible city on the water, then the other side is the working artery canals with taxi boats and ambulance boats parked along the shores. In Venice, there are boat shops, boat taxis, police boats, firemen boats, boat buses, garbage boats .

In late autumn and winter Venice is real in a special way - there are fewer visitors, almost nothing distracts you from diving into the city and merging with it. Venice attracts tourists with its otherness. In a sense, this is not a city at all. Venice exists at the junction of the natural-spontaneous and human worlds. It seems that the natural here is more. A person seems to have subordinated the lagoon to his needs, but in fact it is she who allows a person to use herself for the time being.

The tourist traffic in Venice always moves in the same direction - from the station square to the Rialto Bridge, and from there, through the shopping street, where they sell poor-quality souvenirs of Chinese origin and diluted coffee, to St. Mark's Square, the beauty of which is almost impossible to see because of a huge number of people. Nevertheless, it is necessary to admire the main Venetian landmark, but for this you need to come to the square either early in the morning or late in the evening.

What is Venice really?

In addition to the aesthetic impact on newly arrived tourists, the channels perform a purely practical function - the same as the streets and alleys in any other normal city. That is, locals drive on them, or rather swim. Therefore, here you can sometimes see the phenomenon to which the residents of large cities are accustomed - traffic jams. But here they are unusual - gondolas accumulate in narrow channels in traffic jams.

Why do tourists love Venice? In the first centuries of the Roman Empire, fishermen settled on flat, sandy, salted, barren islands of the lagoon, harsh and gloomy. The northwestern coast of the Adriatic is a swampy lowland. Large rivers carry silt and mud into the sea, and the land slowly comes. Sandbanks stretch along the coast, and behind them extensive shallow water and many islands. Once upon a time they were all deserted, only the birds settled here for the night.

Now the city is not so subordinated to the water, as before. Still, from the XIX century there is a bridge connecting Venice with the mainland, and it allows you to get very quickly, for example, to Mestre or Marghera (mainland Venice). The bridge deprived everyone arriving in Venice the most important "transition ritual" - a rather long boat trip along the lagoon from the mainland to the city itself, during which the "power" of the water element could be felt.

The best way to explore any city is to walk on it. So you can leisurely explore the sights, hear the sounds and smell the aromas of this area. Of course, you can walk almost everywhere, but some cities have more walks than others. They have unique, distinctive areas with famous landmarks, interesting architecture and much more, all within close proximity. Enjoy your pleasant journey, not forgetting to capture it in the pictures!